Life Satisfaction: To Teach is to Love

Was this woman an old time school teacher? She looks the part

This painting is how I envisage that old time school Marm... A picture from the Internet.

Seemingly insignificant occurrences can play a profound part in our lives.

Sometimes seemingly insignificant occurrences can play a profound part in our lives. Back in 1960 I bought a Readers’ Digest Magazine to read on the train home from work. In it was an article written by a retired American School ‘Mom,’ a lady who had spent some half century teaching primary school children. The name of that article was, ‘To Teach is to Love.’

Yes, this is the sort of class I was in as a boy.

No, it's not me. I don't even know what school or where, but it that's the sort of class I remember as a lad.

Running a Toastmasters Speechcraft Course can be very gratifying.

The message rang true. It still does. And as the years have gone by it has become, for me, even more central to my life. Anyone here who has ever run a Toastmasters’ Speechcraft course knows how rewarding teaching can be. The same with a Youth Leadership course. When we teach something which can really change one’s life for the better, bring them joy and happiness- we, too, are brought that same joy and happiness. What we give, we get back many times.

The author running a Storytelling Workshop, Febuary 2011

Everybody loves a good story, and they love to learn how to tell them well.

The Toastmaster Audience loved it.

Few years back I had the privilege of being asked to present a forty-minute workshop, a teaching session really, at the District 70 Toastmasters’ Semi-Annual Conference in Sydney. I spoke on how to ‘use story.’ The Toastmaster audience loved it. You can tell these things. And I loved doing it. In 2008 in Adelaide, I had the same experience, speaking at the District 73 Annual Conference, in 2011 the same in District 69.

1926 Class room scene.

I started school in 1941. The class rooms were much the same. It's far different now!

Life Satisfaction? My Cup Runneth Over.

Today I am teaching retirees what I believe to be the world’s most important subject. I call my course: Inner Quest- oursearch for happiness. The course runs at Parramatta and has been ongoing for eight successive years. In August 2002 I started with a second group over at Gordon, in Sydney’s Northern suburbs. People are flocking to both of these classes. My cup runneth over. It makes for real life satisfaction.

Why? Because I love what I do, and do what I love. You see, I love teaching. And to teach is to love...

Happy days of learning.

A more modern approach. Note the neat rows of desks in front of the teacher are now largely a thing of the past.

Teaching inherent in Nature

There is something inherent not only in human beings but in much of Nature that has creatures teaching others of their own species. The lioness trains her cubs to hunt, the monkey how to forage for fruit. So it could well be that teaching is not just a something we deliberately and with aforethought choose to do. We do it automatically – well, almost. “You’re doing it the hard way, son. Try it this way.” “Come, I’ll show you how to make a really good sponge cake.” “It’s easy to ride a bicycle if you remember you’ve got to be moving all the time.” These are the actions and advice that arise automatically from any parent or friend as they teach us.

This business of teaching is real love

Perhaps it is something in Nature that is devised to ensure a species survives, for surely many of the higher primates could not unless they were not only nurtured but taught how to survive or succeed in this world. Nature has other ways of dealing with its creatures which appear not to have this teaching instinct. It ensures lots and lots of that species are born. That way, at least some few will reach adulthood and breed the next lot. But the higher mammals such as elephants and whales generally have only one offspring at a time and they take years in teaching them what to do and how to do it.

Morevoer, you can sense the love in these higher evolved creatures as they go about these duties. There is often lots of fondling and body contact. Protection is there, too. Most mothers would give their lives for their young. Indeed, this business of teaching is real love.